Expressor’s software surrounds semantic ETL and integration with a learning engine. With a standing partnership and existing integrations between the two providers, QlikView announced QlikView Expressor Server, a metadata solution, would be available immediately.
Anthony Deighton, QlikTech CTO, said he expects his vendor’s Business Discovery platform to gain from data lineage and common definitions for a “new breed of rapid, iterative metadata intelligence.” In a release on the acquisition, QlikTech also stated that Expressor data management offerings would be geared toward facilitation of expanded IT security and governance across enterprise deployments. In November, QlikTech updated its BI platform, QlikView 11, with expanded capabilities for mobile devices and with social collaboration outside of enterprise firewalls.
Rita Sallam, research VP with Gartner, said the deal looks to fill a notable gap in QlikTech’s data discovery capabilities concerning metadata autodiscovery, resuse, management and governance. Integrating these capabilities keeps QlikTech’s platform in line with recent metadata updates from direct competitors Tableau and Tibco, and extends its competitive reach for larger deployments, Sallam says.
“It also gives QlikView a business user oriented data mash up tool, which they lacked and which should ultimately replace their existing ETL and modeling tool that requires scripting,” Sallam says.
QlikTech CEO Lars Bjork said in a release on the deal that they would add 20 employees from Expressor – “primarily software engineers” – which represents about two-thirds of Expressor’s workforce. Founded in 2007, Expressor is based in Burlington, Mass. and its CEO is Bob Potter, formerly with Kalido.
Financial details were not disclosed. QlikTech stated it would introduce a roadmap and additional integration plans “over the coming months.”
Justin Kern is senior editor at Information Management and can be reached at justin.kern@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IMJustinKern.
